ID Biomedical Corp. plans to raise more than $22 million through a public offering of common shares.

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company entered a plan with a syndicate of underwriters to sell about 2.6 million shares at $8.50 apiece, which would result in gross proceeds of about $22.2 million. Underwriters have an overallotment option of 390,000 shares at the same price, exercisable for 30 days after closing. The offering is expected to close May 28.

The per-share cost represented a 12 percent discount to Wednesday's close of $9.65. ID's stock (NASDAQ:IDBE) lost 20 cents Thursday to close at $9.45.

Following the sale, ID would have about 35.4 million shares outstanding, according to its prospectus filed with the SEC.

ID said it would use the proceeds to continue development of its FluINsure and StreptAvax vaccine products, as well as for other general business purposes. Both products have entered Phase II studies.

Earlier this month, ID reported that an ongoing analysis of a challenge study of the intranasal influenza vaccine revealed positive safety results as well as encouraging data relative to potential endpoints of the study. A prior analysis showed that among study participants - who either received one or two FluINsure doses, or placebo - showed that 19 of 22 volunteers in the two-dose group met a no-illness criteria, a statistically significant 71.4 percent reduction in illness relative to placebo. Immunization also resulted in complete elimination of all measures of systemic illness in the two-dose group.

The intranasal flu vaccine market has several potential competitors, most notably FluMist, which is expected to be approved this quarter and is developed by Gaithersburg, Md.-based MedImmune Inc. But ID said it is not aware of any group A streptococcus products in the clinic that would compete with its StreptAvax drug.

Preliminary results from the first cohort of a Phase II trial of StreptAvax also reported this month pointed to significant immunogenicity for the vaccine. The company said sera from StreptAvax subjects had the capacity to support statistically significant increases in the killing of group A streptococci belonging to all 26 bacterial serotypes included in the multivalent recombinant vaccine.

ID said it eventually would enlist outside help for sales and marketing purposes, assuming such products advance to commercialization. For now, though, much of its revenue is driven by licenses of its genomics technology. For 2002, the company reported C$10.9 million (US$7.9 million) in licensing revenue. ID lost about C$14.5 million over the full-year period.

The company reported cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaling about C$23.8 million as of Dec. 31.

New York-based CIBC World Markets Corp. was the lead underwriter in the syndicate, which also included Canaccord Capital Corp., of Vancouver; RBC Capital Markets, of Toronto; Dlouhy Merchant Group Inc., of Montreal; TD Securities Inc., of Toronto; Desjardins Securities Inc., of Montreal; and Wells Fargo Securities LLC, of San Francisco.